Back to Loch Morlich for some star trails

CaveDweller

CaveDweller

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Paul
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It was a great night and my best attempt at star trails yet. It would have been a lot better if I'd had some moonlight to light up the scenery a bit, but there wasn't any so I tried to create a bit of foreground interest with some light painting and I forgot to re-frame the shot to get rid of the wasted space. I would have done a few things different but it's within a 20minute drive so I have plenty other nights to head up that way.

I have one gap in the trails and that's my own fault. I stupidly walked past the camera forgetting it was there with my head torch and ruined one of the frames. I'm not sure what's caused the sharp line in the water reflections by my attempted light orb. I think it's just the way Starstax have stacked the images.

Any CC appreciated.

Edit: better versions down below \/ \/ \/

starsssss by Peanut651, on Flickr
 
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Could that sharp line be your head torch again? Certainly looks like it to me.
Good trails though:)
 
JulesP said:
Could that sharp line be your head torch again? Certainly looks like it to me.
Good trails though:)
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Cheers. Don't have a clue to be honest. I've tried looking through all the pictures but can't find anything. I'll just have to try again and not be so dozy :rolleyes:
 
The sharp line I'm guessing is a car on the other side of the loch, your head torch wouldn't have been reflected in the water and if as is suspect that is is a car it should be easy to remove that from the scene by a number of routes depending on the processing you want to do, just painting over it in pure black on the frame/frames with car in them will cause stacking software such as StarStaX to simple ignore that area of the image

To be honest I don't think that the orb adds to this image for the simple reason, it's over exposed and a little sloppy if I'm honest, once you've got spinning orbs down a little better I think they well make a fantastic addition to scene (y)

What were your individual frame settings for this? It certainly feels to me that the exposures could certainly be pushed more to bring some light in the landscape, I'm guessing there wasn't much in the way of moonlight, this has the benefit of being able to see more stars but for me I'm normally more than happy to compromise the amount of the stars for what a little moon light does for the landscape when it comes to a star trail (y)

All that said I think your doing well and your certainly right in saying your going in the right direction and improving so keep it up (y)
 
Been looking at this one again - directly above the orb is a very bright star trail - I think the reflection in the water is that star - if you draw a line straight up from the reflection it looks to fit and is going in the same direction with opposite angle like a reflected trail would.
Try looking through your single images to see if this reflection is built up in stages the same way the trails are:)
 
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JulesP said:
Been looking at this one again - directly above the orb is a very bright star trail - I think the reflection in the water is that star - if you draw a line straight up from the reflection it looks to fit and is going in the same direction with opposite angle like a reflected trail would.
Try looking through your single images to see if this reflection is built up in stages the same way the trails are:)
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I now see the sharp strip of light your referring to :) sorry I was being a twonk, but it's not from that bright star, if you look closely at the orb just inside it there is a orange/sodium bump on the the trails that makes up the orb from a static light source on the far side, that's what your seeing reflected at the sharp line :)
 
Ha - I'm at twonk too then:)
Didn't notice that line at all - I was looking at the one to the bottom right of the reflected orb:D
 
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JulesP said:
Ha - I'm at twonk too then:)
Didn't notice that line at all - I was looking at the one to the bottom right of the reflected orb:D
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Hmm yeah I see what you mean now...that is an odd one, it could well be from a star as judging from the reflection of the orb the water was fairly still in that area of water :)

I do love little mysteries like this :D
 
Yeah but looking at the OP it's obvious it's the line you were referring to as it states 'sharp line'.
The one I was looking at is blurry - I can't believe I didn't even noticed that one despite several looks at the picture!
And yeah looking on a bigger screen rather than ipad it looks like the reflection from a sodium street lamp visible through the orb.
 
Lol thanks guys. I'll re do it without the orb and I'll edit out the car head lights as well before I stack the images.

MWHCVT said:
The sharp line I'm guessing is a car on the other side of the loch, your head torch wouldn't have been reflected in the water and if as is suspect that is is a car it should be easy to remove that from the scene by a number of routes depending on the processing you want to do, just painting over it in pure black on the frame/frames with car in them will cause stacking software such as StarStaX to simple ignore that area of the image

To be honest I don't think that the orb adds to this image for the simple reason, it's over exposed and a little sloppy if I'm honest, once you've got spinning orbs down a little better I think they well make a fantastic addition to scene (y)

What were your individual frame settings for this? It certainly feels to me that the exposures could certainly be pushed more to bring some light in the landscape, I'm guessing there wasn't much in the way of moonlight, this has the benefit of being able to see more stars but for me I'm normally more than happy to compromise the amount of the stars for what a little moon light does for the landscape when it comes to a star trail (y)

All that said I think your doing well and your certainly right in saying your going in the right direction and improving so keep it up (y)
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My settings were ISO1600 f/3.5 25seconds. There was no moon light at all which is a real shame because there's lovely scenery around the Cairngorms and there's still snow on the hills, even though we've been the hottest part of the UK over the past few weeks lol. I could have stayed there all night but got a call at 3am with the kids throwing up.

As you said at least I'm getting there. It's better than my first attempt lol.
 
I did do some wire wool as well which looked quite nice, but the sparks went so high I may as well have not bothered with the star trails lol.
 
It shows how little light pollution you have that there is literally no abiemt light at all on this moonless night, I hope you get a little moon for the next one then :D...your certainly progressing well (y) and you've got a hell of an area for locations and light pollution or lack of it ;) hope your kid is feeling better now :)

Have you posted the WW shot anywhere?
 
MWHCVT said:
It shows how little light pollution you have that there is l

iterally no abiemt light at all on this moonless night, I hope you get a little moon for the next one then :D...your certainly progressing well (y) and you've got a hell of an area for locations and light pollution or lack of it ;) hope your kid is feeling better now :)

Have you posted the WW shot anywhere?
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No not posted anywhere. I really only did it as a bit of foreground interest because there was no moonlight, but as I said above it blocked half the sky lol. It doesn't look great just by itself.

Here's just a quick re edit of it. The sharp line we are all wondering about isn't there any more with no stacked shot of the orb. The lights were cars driving up to the ski slopes and that orange glow is a bonfire. I'm going to do it again properly without the cars and fire but I'm using an old laptop just now and it's dead slow. I took this straight out of Starstax, I normally give them a little tweaking in LR and PS but I just thought I'd show you the reflections. I also think I have a few dodgy pixels, loads of tiny coloured dots showed up within the first few shots.

tryrtyrtyrty by Peanut651, on Flickr
 
Now you see I like those WW spins, it would be ace if you had an angle / PoV where you could make more of the reflection but I do really like the idea and I personally don't find it to dominate the trails too badly
 
MWHCVT said:
I think that pretty much confirms it as being reflections of some of the brighter stars, there are just a few more there that are really faint but certainly visible :)
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I'll have a proper edit of it later on my PC. It's hard to get it right with stacking the images of the wire wool and star trails. as soon as I put in the WW picture the stars go dimmer.
 
I just spun it like that because I had so much trouble trying to light the stuff and my remote shutter was dodgy. I'll do it above my head next time or something like that and compose the shot a bit better to get more reflections and more stars.
 
I'm pretty sure you could alter the blending setting in StarStaX to correct for that, but I'd have to spend a little time looking at how to do it, you could also cheat/trick the software making a duplicate of the stacked image and making a stack of two star trail images and a single WW frame
 
MWHCVT said:
I'm pretty sure you could alter the blending setting in StarStaX to correct for that, but I'd have to spend a little time looking at how to do it, you could also cheat/trick the software making a duplicate of the stacked image and making a stack of two star trail images and a single WW frame
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This is the best I can get it for now, my heads hurting lol. Shpuld look a lot better when I edit myself and all the lights out, or even better go back the next clear night lol. I'll make sure my WW spin next time is the same exposure time as the stars so I'm not trying to black a black sky against star trails.

StarStaX_IMG_1390 - Copy-tryrtyrtyrty_average+1.5 by Peanut651, on Flickr
 
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CaveDweller said:
This is the best I can get it for now, my heads hurting lol. Shpuld look a lot better when I edit myself and all the lights out, or even better go back the next clear night lol. I'll make sure my WW spin next time is the same exposure time as the stars so I'm not trying to black a black sky against star trails.

StarStaX_IMG_1390 - Copy-tryrtyrtyrty_average+1.5 by Peanut651, on Flickr
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Not I really like that :) I think they strike a nice balance
 
MWHCVT said:
Not I really like that :) I think they strike a nice balance
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Cheers It's the best I can get it with a lot of fiddling about lol. I'm doing the rest of it now to get all the lights out but I have a good 100shots to edit individually :beer:beer time!
 
Yeah I like those wire wool shots too:)
Got a wire wool setup (whisk and stuff) but never actually tried it yet - will have to remedy that this year - c'mon Matt we need a night workshop;)
 
JulesP said:
Yeah I like those wire wool shots too:)
Got a wire wool setup (whisk and stuff) but never actually tried it yet - will have to remedy that this year - c'mon Matt we need a night workshop;)
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And boy do I want to be providing it :) more than you can imagine ;)
 
Works really well that Paul, more than worth the effort, in fact I've even popped over to Flickr to show it a little love too...as to removing yourself from this version I wouldn't bother, but for future maybe think about dark clothing,in fact when I'm on a night shoot I where all black...normally all back cotton so as to not have the remotest chance of a reflecting any light from my light painting :)
 
MWHCVT said:
Works really well that Paul, more than worth the effort, in fact I've even popped over to Flickr to show it a little love too...as to removing yourself from this version I wouldn't bother, but for future maybe think about dark clothing,in fact when I'm on a night shoot I where all black...normally all back cotton so as to not have the remotest chance of a reflecting any light from my light painting :)
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Cheers:D, just realised I forgot to edit out all my dodgy pixels lol, will have to do it and re upload the finished one.
 
Thanks all. Hoping for another clear night to try some other stuff at Loch Morlich again.
 
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